From a podcast with Roo Rogers on the rise of Collaborative Consumption to this great video about Portland's tool libraries, the idea that we can share more and own less has a lot going for it. Now the BBC World Service has a great extended piece on the joys of sharing, from multi-million dollar car share services to informal swapping initiatives with neighbors. The environmental benefits are undeniable, but as Sam Stevens—founder of a swapping website called StreetBank—argues, it may be the social benefits that are most profound:

Some time ago, I became good friends with my neighbor. And it was really through lending things. It started small. It started with a pint of milk. Then I think he needed some chairs for a dinner party. And trust grew over that time. A short time afterwards, I was walking down the street and saw someone with a hedge cutter. I thought that I needed to borrow that hedge cutter, but I didn't quite have the courage to ask. But it occurred to me that it was crazy that every house in the street would need to have a hedge cutter, or an electric drill, or a ladder.